Wednesday, September 23, 2015

WILD Character Creation (take 2)

Last night we put the band back together. Well, as best we could.

Edge (left), Stoo (via virtual reality, which worked surprisingly well) and Debs

On many occasions I've mentioned the most involved gaming sessions in my gaming history were with a few players - Edge, Tetch, Stoo and my lovely wifey. Those were some of the most intense and creepiest games when we played Mage, Kult and later WitchCraft. And I was eager to try to recapture the magic again.

Admittedly, Stoo lives miles away and had to appear via the wonders of Skype, which didn't work too badly (he could see us all and the table and everything!) and Tetch is on holiday somewhere, we thought we'd run a little trial session and see if the character creation for WILD worked.

I did a trial char-gen before, but thanks to writing the key-phrases on the WILD Cards, this worked a lot faster and easier.

Cards you say? Yes, the weird and wacky thing about WILD is that character creation involves cards. WILD can mean that your character's inner-most fears or memories can surface while dreamsharing, so it is important to have some depth to the character's history and background prior to gaming. Creating a character in WILD involves making a traditional Tarot spread using the WILD Cards.

Stoo's character creation layout.
I think it worked this time. Players who came to the table with an idea in mind for what they wanted their character to be and do still had what they wanted, but with some additional elements they hadn't considered before. Those who came without an idea had a pretty interesting launching point to get them started.

The next phase involved using a handful of spare cards each player had to create a relationship between the characters, common locations, events or people. For such a small group, there may have been too many cards involved, but that's what playtesting is all about. But it strangely worked - a location ties the characters together, and added an NPC and a person in one character's past that may have repercussions for the whole group. Not only does it tie the characters together without the "you're in a bar" first session, but it gives me as the DM (DreamMaster) some ideas for elements to draw into the game.

I talked them through the rules (not that there are many) and it all seems to make sense...

Next will be the first game. I don't know how it'll go - I have an epic and bizarre game designed for them, but it'll be the first time I put the rules into action, so we'll see how it goes.

Until next time,

LLAP - and Stay Multi-classy!

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